Trapped in Venezuela: Airlines Abandon Fliers Amid Currency Dispute

Delta, American, Lufthansa Have Slashed Service Since January; A Tough Road Trip for Soccer Team

CARACAS, Venezuela—When this city's professional soccer club traveled to a key match in Peru, its tough rival wasn't the only challenge. The team also had to endure an arduous four-day journey, including four connecting flights, a layover in neighboring Colombia and a jarring, cross-border bus ride.

Like many of their compatriots, the players simply couldn't get a flight that would take them where they wanted to go.

The 20-man team was a victim of the long-simmering dispute between international airlines and the leftist administration of President Nicolas Maduro. With the cash-strapped government holding back on releasing $3.8 billion in airline-ticket revenue because of strict currency controls, carriers have slashed service to Venezuela by half since January, adding another layer of frustration to daily life here.

The lack of flights is complicating family vacations, business trips and the evacuation plans of Venezuelans who want to leave the country, which is whipsawed by 60% inflation, crime, food shortages and diminishing job prospects. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economics professor, says Venezuela tops his so-called "misery index," which takes into account inflation, unemployment, economic stagnation and other factors in 89 countries.

"In Venezuela, you have the sensation that you can't leave," says Virginia Hernández, a Venezuelan who is studying orthodontics in Argentina. During a recent trip to see family in Caracas, she wound up marooned. The Venezuelan state-run carrier Conviasa had no plane available to fly its scheduled Caracas-to-Buenos Aires route, and other airlines servicing Argentina had sold out their flights.

Passengers wait at a Caracas airport where airlines have cut flights.
AFP/Getty Images

"On Sunday they told us to come back Monday. Then they told us to check again on Tuesday and then Wednesday," said Ms. Hernández, who missed several days of classes before finally finding a ticket on another airline. "It was a mess. I almost felt ashamed that this is my home country."

The Caracas polling company Datanalisis found that one in 10 citizens—most of them middle- and upper-class Venezuelans between 18 and 35—are seeking to leave the country, more than double the number who sought to abandon it in 2002, which was marked by an unsuccessful coup attempt against then President Hugo Chavez and a paralyzing oil strike.

President Maduro blames the country's problems on an "economic war" led by greedy capitalists trying to topple his government. "They're trying to wage a little war by getting rid of our overseas flights," he said during a recent televised address. "I've told these companies clearly that those who leave or try to blackmail Venezuela will not return," he warned, promising that "we'll replace them faster than you think."

But despite several months of talks over the money Venezuela owes to airlines, little progress has been made. About two-thirds of the 24 airlines that are affected, including those with the most money tied up in Venezuela, haven't reached a payment agreement with the state, said Jason Sinclair, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association. And those that have reached deals lack guarantees that the funds will be released, he said.

"The country unfortunately is disconnecting from the world economy and runs the risk of deeper isolation," he added.

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department issued an advisory urging Venezuela-bound travelers to take precautions as dwindling flights from the country leave people stranded here. Companies including
Delta Air Lines Inc.,
American Airlines and
Lufthansa
have drastically cut passenger capacity and offer only a small fraction of tickets in the local bolivar currency, whose value has plummeted on the black market. Earlier this year
Air Canada
suspended service entirely.

The flights that are left are too expensive for many Venezuelans to afford, with economy-class tickets to New York easily topping $3,000, six times the price of a year ago, even when they're bought months in advance.

Travel agents are swamped with requests but turn customers away because there are no tickets to sell. Some travelers are left taking the bus, with trips to Lima, Peru, a five-day journey, now packed with middle-class Venezuelans who used to fly.

Amid the troubles, the Tourism Ministry launched a campaign to promote travel using an enthusiastic teenaged cartoon character named "Cheverito," or "the cool one." Rucksack in hand, he trots all over the country with a big smile on his face, encouraging locals to visit Venezuela's "cool" natural wonders.

But the animated figure, shown on state TV, quickly became the target of ridicule for some on social media. They created posters putting Cheverito into what they said were more likely scenarios: being robbed at gun point and walking past piles of uncollected garbage.

Many Venezuelans who want to leave the country simply can't. Tickets for short flights to other transit hubs in the region, such as Panama City or Bogotá, are difficult to come by.

On top of that, stringent currency controls mean that Venezuelans have access to only $400 a year, making it nearly impossible to pay the high prices airlines demand for tickets on the Web.

"Just about all of my friends want to get out of here," said Roberto Villarroel, a 19-year-old university student who wants to move to Argentina. "I'm still looking for a ticket, though. The prices go up every day."

Some Venezuelans, particularly those who are affluent, are paying whatever price is required to leave.

Rafael Larrazabal, a 44-year-old businessman, could find only first-class tickets on Delta, and he purchased them months in advance. On a recent day, he, his wife and two young children boarded a flight to Atlanta and then Berlin, where they plan to start anew.

"What's the future here?" remarked Mr. Larrazabal at a tearful family send-off. "The country is not functioning. There's crime. I said, 'Let me see if I can get out of here alive and then see what happens.'"

For the Caracas Football Club, the professional soccer team, the lack of tickets has turned their qualification for a South American tournament—an honor in the soccer world—into a logistical nightmare. Team spokesman Pedro Ricardo Maio said he has already started to fret about how to get the players from Caracas, on the northern tip of the continent, to matches far to the south.

"Even if we qualify past the first round, we're going to be in the same problem, of course," he said. "It's not going to be easy."